Never, ever make contact with the bottom.
"In some instances, making contact with the bottom is considered an acceptable practice.
Guilherme Garcia photo
If you haven’t wanted to burn me at the stake by now, here goes. Over the years we have occasionally published photos of divers kneeling on the bottom. This usually results in a flurry of reader letters calling
Dive Training out for promoting bad diving practices. Most recently, in the July/August issue, we ran cover photos that feature two divers standing/kneeling on a sandy bottom while on a shark dive at the famous “Tiger Beach” dive site off Grand Bahama Island. I am one of the divers pictured in the photo. I’m not sure where or when the “never touch the bottom” rule got started, but I can assure you there are several instances in which kneeling in the sand is an accepted practice. Tiger Beach is a perfect example. The site is shallow (less than 30 feet [10 m]), there’s usually a moderate current running — and the water is filled with sharks. For these reasons, attempting to stay neutrally buoyant, kicking hard against a current while hovering a few feet off the seafloor and keeping an eye on the sharks would be impractical — and potentially dangerous. Here, kneeling in the sand is the best practice. Dive operators in other parts of the Bahamas, Fiji, Tahiti, the Maldives and other popular dive destinations follow this practice.
Those who teach
underwater photography know it is better to position beginning photographers in a sandy patch adjacent to a reef than to have them crashing into the coral while just starting out with a camera. Yes, the
sand biome contains marine life, but in most instances it is not as delicate as fragile corals. A diver who carefully settles on a sandy area will have minimum impact on the environment.
In parts of the world where strong currents are common, dive operators instruct divers in the use of “current hooks” as a means of having minimum impact on the environment. A current hook, as its name implies, is a large hook attached to a short length of line with a clip at the other end. The clip attaches to a D-ring on a diver’s BC. Divers learn to hook into an area of coral rubble in order to stay put in a strong current. By using the hook, they avoid grabbing the bottom with their hands.
Here’s one more real-world “contact” scenario: If a diver accidentally ventures too close to the reef, rather than kicking to attempt to move farther away, using a one-finger touch of a dead or algae-covered section of reef to carefully push up and away from the reef is likely to prevent the diver from damaging living coral.
The “look but don’t touch” mantra is ideal, but there are instances when it’s not always practical. What I’m suggesting here is careful and conscientious contact with the bottom (and with dead sections of coral) when conditions warrant it."
Now it's me speaking
Well it actually goes like this and don't worry everyone will be back
for hundreds of pages more of inane never concluded discussion
Gotta love it when some actually open links
A really informative article
Challenging the "Rules" of Scuba Diving | Scuba Diving News, Gear, Education | Dive Training Magazine
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